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# The Arnold 'Flop' That Aged Surprisingly Well
- URL: https://www.bensmovieguide.com/arn/
- Published: 2026-09-23T10:50:55.000Z
- Updated: 2026-09-27T05:12:22.000Z
- Description: *Last Action Hero* was supposed to be another massive Arnold Schwarzenegger hit. Instead, it became one of the ’90s most famous flops—and one of the decade’s most misunderstood action movies.
- Author: Ben
- Tags: #editorial, #movie, Movie: Last Action Hero (1993), action, comedy, fantasy, 1990s, Rating: PG-13, #Runtime: 130, #Verdict: Rent, #Watch: Major Platforms, #Eyebrow: Better with age, #featured

There was a stretch in the late ’80s and early ’90s when Arnold Schwarzenegger was basically king of the box office.

*Predator*. *Twins*. *Total Recall*. *Kindergarten Cop*. *Terminator 2*.

You put Arnie on the poster, preferably holding something large and dangerous, and people bought tickets.

But even Arnie wasn’t immune to the occasional disaster.

And in 1993, he had a big one.

*Last Action Hero* was supposed to be a monster hit. Columbia spent around $85 million making it—an enormous budget at the time—and marketed the living hell out of it. At one point they were even planning to put the movie’s logo on a NASA rocket.

Seriously.

They were apparently promoting movies in space now.

And you can see why the studio was confident. This thing had Arnie, *Die Hard* director John McTiernan, explosions, car chases, machine guns, ridiculous villains and enough property damage to keep an insurance adjuster busy for years.

Arnold plays Jack Slater, an indestructible movie cop living in a world where every woman is beautiful, every police captain is angry and every car eventually explodes. A movie-obsessed kid named Danny gets pulled into Slater’s world and immediately realizes something Jack doesn’t:

None of this makes any sense.

Bad guys can fire 400 rounds without hitting anything. Jack can get shot, punched and thrown through windows and be perfectly fine five minutes later.

Because he’s the hero.

That’s the joke.

And Arnold is the joke.

Which, looking back, is probably the smartest thing about the movie. *Last Action Hero* isn’t just an over-the-top Arnie action movie. It’s making fun of over-the-top Arnie action movies.

Strip away the insane expectations and there’s a really entertaining movie here. Charles Dance is terrific as Benedict, a movie villain who discovers that the real world is considerably easier for bad guys because there aren’t heroes conveniently showing up every eight minutes.

Arnold is clearly having fun with the whole thing, and the movie has a wonderfully ridiculous streak running through it.

Thirty-plus years later, it works.

Maybe audiences just weren’t ready for Arnold Schwarzenegger making fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

It doesn’t matter now.

One of Arnie’s most famous flops turned out to be considerably better than everyone remembered.

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